OSHKOSH – Jake White decided before he set foot on a college campus: He would never touch alcohol or drugs.

Growing up in Oshkosh, he watched his uncles struggle with alcohol. While so many things in their lives seemed to be going well, alcohol was making it worse. So entering his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, White vowed never to touch it.

"It taught me, alcohol can't make me happy, buying things can't make me happy — there must be more," he said. "I just realized after a while that I didn't need it. I'd go to a party, and I'd have a ton of fun. I'd dance like an idiot."

But White felt isolated on the campus tucked into a city that is stubbornly proud of its indulgence in alcohol. That is, until he stumbled on a survey that indicated there were more here like him.

It was a revelation that would alter the course of his career.

A similar study, in 2015, indicated that some 68 percent of UWO students drank alcohol in the 30 days before being surveyed. The American College Health Association used responses from 4,000 UWO students to reach its results.

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The Splashkosh party festival included many type of games, live music, and a 200-foot slip-and-slide held at Red Arrow park on Saturday, August 5, 2017.(Photo: Jeannette Merten/For USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

That meant some 30 percent of the campus didn't drink regularly, a number that seemed both unbelievably high and wildly encouraging, White said.

So he conducted a survey of his own. White asked hundreds of students by email why they drank. Nearly all listed the same reason: They wanted to have fun with friends and meet new ones.

White knew they didn't need alcohol to do that.

He and a few friends decided to throw a party. They spent a day chatting with dozens of students on campus. All told, 140 said they'd like to receive a text about an alcohol- and drug-free party.

The first party they threw — in a friend's cramped college living room — was a disaster. Some 80 people showed up. With hardly enough room to breathe, people cleared out within an hour. But White kept at it and kept getting better. Companies like Red Bull even stepped up to sponsor some parties.

"That's when I knew I could actually get paid to teach students how to do this," he said. "I'm solving a problem in their lives. And that's when I jumped into entrepreneurship."

His party-organizing business, Party.0, also earned its start with a little luck. White was on the cusp of graduating, needing just one math class to finish, when he enrolled in a UWO boot camp for would-be entrepreneurs like him.

He joined the inaugural cohort of the Alta Resources Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, which seeks to train students with business ideas how to get off the ground. Working there, he built a website, registered as a nonprofit and earned $10,000 from completing the program that allowed him to keep investing in Party.0.

"Oshkosh is great, I guess I was lucky that I got in the first year it started," White said. "It's attached to the university, so there's some financial backing and some credibility. I know that they are getting better (for startups)."

He parlayed that session into a national tour, visiting colleges across the country, teaching student groups how to conduct their own sober parties. He also runs training sessions, passing on how he started these get-togethers in Oshkosh.

A day after White left from a recent visit to Indiana University, students there began implementing his plan, he said, and secured more than $2,000 in donated food from Chick-fil-A. Mississippi State University now has a Party.0 chapter. This year he'll be visiting Clemson University and Michigan Technological University, among others.

And in early August, White threw a different kind of party.

At Red Arrow Park in Oshkosh, White set up a 200-foot slip-and-slide, arranging 11 bands to perform alongside food trucks and other games. The "bucket list" event, dubbed Splashkosh, was a hit for teenagers and young families, he said, and could be a new branch for the business. He's planning another event next year.

There's a common theme here, White said. Alcohol or not, everybody likes to have fun.

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Isaac Johnson slides down the 200-foot slip-and-slide at Red Arrow park for the first ever Splashkosh family event August 5, 2017. This event is a fundraiser for Party.0, a nonprofit that helps high school and college students across the nation host safe, sober, and totally awesome events for their peers! (Photo: Jeannette Merten/For USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin)

Entrepreneurship in Oshkosh

Strengths: Emerging support network for new businesses at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh

Weaknesses: Economy defined by legacy industries

Opportunities: Counter-cultural thinking can lay groundwork for business opportunities